Friday 12 December 2008 19.01 EST
First published on Friday 12 December 2008 19.01 EST

Once again the Guardian has launched excerpts from itself in miscellanies that gather tidy morsels of good (or tolerable) prose on a wide range of topics. Letters to the Editor, edited by Nigel Wilmott and Rory Foster (Guardian Books, £10.99), is a fund of wisdom, eloquence, petulance and sheer bloody-mindedness, all lovely. Barbara MacArthur, for instance, writes from Cardiff that she smiled to read that 40% of Britons fear being lonely in their old age. She is, she tells us, 81, and yet she remains the sole care-giver for her 54-year-old son, who is "autistic, insulin-dependent diabetic, asthmatic" and - as if this wasn't enough - someone who has "learning disabilities". Needless to say (although she does), she is not lonely. In a more political vein, June Brown writes from London to complain about the Guardian "giving space to two harpies - Germaine Greer and Lionel Shriver - in one issue". These harpies did not support Hillary Clinton, whom Brown was "rooting for 100%".

Pithiness is next to godliness in these letters and a few of them ring in my head, as when Mike Mitchell writes to comment on David Cameron's "notes-free speech at Blackpool". Mitchell retools a famous line from Dr Johnson, who referred to the astonishing sight of dogs walking on their hind legs: "It is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all."

Countless delectable slurs and nasty asides occur but there is shrewdness and thoughtfulness as well. Country dwellers write in frequently with local wisdom, as when Stephen Moss writes to put Simon Jenkins right about raptors and their consumption of songbirds. "Here in Somerset, as in the rest of Britain, the songbirds that most often fall prey to sparrowhawks, such as tits and finches, are thriving." Such letters are, quite literally, reports from the field, and they inform as well as entertain.

What one must admire about these letters is their focus and sincerity, as well as the first-hand experience so many writers bring to the task at hand. The columns of 2008 deal with all sorts of nuanced matters of international and national policy - a fair number of the letters complain about Gordon Brown, who is often told to step down or step up. They exhort the public to behave properly. They correct the inevitable errors that crop up in journalistic writing. They provide a kind of moral standard, which has always been the purpose of letters to the editor.

Martin Kettle's Bedside Guardian (Guardian Books, £14.99), with a lively and admiring foreword by Cherie Blair, is, in a sense, the "best of the Guardian" as judged by one reader, and many of the pieces collected here are echoed in Letters to the Editor. The American presidential race is front and centre, especially during the breathtaking primary season when Obama and Clinton ran neck and neck. The nosedive of the world economy also comes forward, just ahead of the decline in the political fortunes of Gordon Brown, whose resurrection (as would-be saviour of the economy) would not occur until after this collection went to press.

One finds many of the usual suspects in these pages, including Timothy Garton Ash, Simon Hoggart, Michael Tomasky, Simon Jenkins, Polly Toynbee and Simon Tisdall. But one also finds sensible and acute prose by the greatest of all English writers - Anonymous - who generated some remarkable leaders in 2008, including a ringing endorsement of Barack Obama: "The times call for fresh vision and toughness. Mr Obama will need plenty of both if his dream is to become the reality for which we hope."

A number of articles say things we all know but would rather forget, as in Julian Glover's report on class in Britain. He cites a Guardian/ICM poll that states: "Ten years of Labour rule have failed to create a classless society." I write from New England, where classlessness also remains a dream, but I doubt that many Americans would acknowledge that class has played a shaping role in their lives. In 1998, 41% of Brits thoughts of themselves as middle class. That number has not shifted a decade later. Only 2% locate themselves in the upper echelons. The rest are working class - a distinction rarely made in the US, where everybody is middle class by self-definition - or homeless.

Gary Younge (reporting from the US) is represented here by astute reflections on the high-profile speech on race given by Obama in Philadelphia in March. Obama was, of course, provoked by the incendiary remarks of his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, whose sermons spread like a virus on the internet. Obama outdid himself, delivering what may rank with the finest American political speeches in history. As Younge acknowledges: "As long as there has been an America, black and white people have had completely different experiences of what being an American means." He notes that the question of whether or not race matters virtually answers itself: if you need to ask, you have the answer.

Divided by seasons, these excerpts provide evidence that journalism is alive and well in this paper's pages and, of course, on its website. For each season, portfolios of colour photographs are included for good measure. My favourite is from September, at the Labour party conference in Manchester. Gordon and Sarah Brown embrace stiffly on stage. Let us just hope there is more warmth at home.